Everything in Moderation

• Jun 23rd, 2009
• Posted by Cody Goins
• Posted in Good Ideas, lolcat, Social Media News

Remember when our nerd president totally rocked social media, masterfully utilized it as a powerful organizational tool during his campaign, and then promised that the openness inherent in social media interaction would find its way into the everyday operations of our federal government?   Well, transparency is here, and it’s occasionally hilarious.

There’s a piece in New York Times right now that talks about this “openness” idea, an idea that we think is an important aspect of any successful brand’s social media campaign.  It also brings up a question that any brand jumping into social media needs to ask:  how do you allow for an open dialogue between brand and consumer while ensuring the conversation still remains relevant? Or to rephrase our old go-to Clay Shirky’s comments from the article– how do you protect the majority from the loudmouthed tyranny of the minority?

So far, it looks like the government is approaching things with a proper social media mindset:

“Our attitude is that any idea, respectfully presented, is a legitimate contribution to the site. Whether or not it is relevant to the discussion is for you to decide, which you can do by voting ideas up or down. But please keep in mind that flooding the site with comments about any single topic dilutes both the importance of that topic and the effectiveness of the Dialogue overall.”

Giving users the power to decide whether or not a certain topic is relevant to a particular channel is an effective way to keep the dialogue alive and on point.  When they see a channel as something that becomes “their” space, self-policing and user advocacy will flourish, and you’ve done your job well.  A channel will probably never become completely self-reliant, but an easily understood and available moderation policy can work wonders towards pushing it in the right direction.